


Misconceptions

by crowdent



Series: Partners [3]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 01:48:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5145773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowdent/pseuds/crowdent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan Prescott was an idea. </p>
<p>People knew of him, but if you asked anyone real questions about him, no one could really answer outside of the typical “he’s rich and his dad is an asshole”. </p>
<p>There were always a million misconceptions about Nathan anyway, and he did nothing to break their illusions, so why should Victoria?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misconceptions

Nathan Prescott was an idea. 

People knew of him, but if you asked anyone real questions about him, no one could really answer outside of the typical “he’s rich and his dad is an asshole”. 

There were always a million misconceptions about Nathan anyway, and he did nothing to break their illusions, so why should Victoria? 

Like how people thought Nathan was popular. Which, in a sense, Victoria figured was true. People did flock to Nathan, but for all the wrong reasons. He actually didn’t have many friends. Just customers after his drugs or his money. If those two things were out of the equation, Nathan would only have Victoria (and Hayden, but that friendship was conditional on the level of amusement Nathan could provide). People didn’t get to know Nathan. They acted like they liked him, for the sake of partying, but Victoria wasn’t stupid.

She could hear them whisper about how he was creepy and crazy and how he had too much money and his daddy took care of everything. The boys had a little more insight, about Nathan screaming into his phone when he was locked in his room. But no one bothered him. No one checked. And if they had, it wasn’t likely Nathan would be honest either. He’d be more likely to tell people to mind their own fucking business. 

They didn’t know Nathan like Victoria did. They didn’t see the bruises when Nathan got back from visits with his father, and if they did, they assumed her deserved it. They hadn’t been Victoria, fly on the wall, peeking around the corner, watching Sean Prescott backhand Nathan across the face with a hand full of expensive rings. They hadn’t heard the things that Victoria had. The things Victoria wasn’t supposed to hear, as she sneaked away and pretended she was shocked the next time she saw Nathan. She doubted any of them would know what to think if they heard “Failure, Useless, Pointless, Disgrace” or worst of all “You shouldn’t have been born” directed at them from their own parent.

It wasn’t even directed at her, but thinking about it sometimes made Victoria need to sneak off and cry. She couldn’t imagine how Nathan felt. And he was good at hiding it, too. Hiding what those things did to him. 

She might not have known if she wasn’t looking at the way he held himself, shoulders hunched, eyes guarded, arms, cradling himself, legs pressed close. He was always ready to snarl and bark, but held himself in a half fetal position. If people knew what to look for, they would know he was afraid.

But, Victoria was much the same. Holding her arms across herself, unable to make eye contact. Sure, she was conscious of it and trained herself to look bold and intimidating, but she always reverted when she was uncomfortable. She wondered if Nathan ever thought about how he carried himself. Probably not, though. Not when he always had so much else on his mind. 

Victoria wondered how other people saw Nathan. They didn’t see his fear. They talked about him like he was some sort of monster, wound up tight, ready to attack. Which, in some ways was true. But only in the sense that he felt threatened. It wasn’t a malicious thing, Nathan’s meltdowns and violence. The core of Nathan’s being was fear and it bled into everything else. Everything. 

Even things that should be about closeness and tenderness.

Sex with Nathan was interesting. It could be all over the place but it wasn’t what most people would expect, especially between him and Victoria. And it wasn’t like Nathan was especially popular or having sex with loads of girls. He wasn’t Hayden. But people had ideas about his sex life and Victoria let them keep their misconceptions. She did not confirm or deny. And how could she gossip about it? It would be wrong. A betrayal. 

Nathan would be humiliated if anyone found out that, half the time, he couldn’t even get it up. 

Victoria had seen it, briefly, the first time she had tried to seduce him. She had tried so hard, pulling out all the stops that would normally work on other people but had no effect on him. She had felt her face go hot, stomach sour, thoughts racing with inadequacy. Was she not sexy enough? Was she not good looking? Had she done something wrong? Why couldn’t she get him hard? It had almost brought her to tears.

Nathan was worse. Apologies were written all over his face, eyes glazed with unshed tears, and teeth clenched tight with frustration. He had pulled her up, kissed her, touched her. He did everything he could to get her there, trembling and moaning and arching into him. But he never got hard and she could tell that he was ashamed of himself. 

She didn’t bring it up. She could have gone forever without talking about it. They didn’t need sex between them anyway. It was fine, the nights where they wrapped around each other, smoking and listening to whale sounds and talking about bullshit. He brought it up anyway.

His meds. The many prescription pills that he popped, turning him into a zombie some days and a twitching mess on others. 

He looked pale and annoyed as he explained that they stole his libido and made it hard to do anything at all. That was the price of trying to stay sane and okay. And then he had laughed it off, leaning against her with his insubstantial weight and a shaking hand around her shoulder. Whispering “I don’t really like sex anyway. I just want it because it’s normal. What I wouldn’t give to be fucking normal.” 

She held his hand that night, not minding the tremors that went through him and into her. It just made her feel close to him. That was supposed to be the point of sex with him anyway. She just wanted to get close. 

Victoria wasn’t looking for some epic love story with Nathan. She wasn’t disillusioned and romance hardly meant much to her. She wasn’t looking for a happily ever after romance with them, the two most wealthy rich kids in Blackwell. She just wanted to stay with him. That was all. She wanted him to hold her when the pressure from trying so hard got to be overwhelming and she wanted to hold him together so he wouldn’t explode and hurt himself and everyone around him with his shrapnel. 

So it was okay. Sex wasn’t everything. They weren’t dating or in love. They just needed each other.

They spent ages making out anyway, acting like they were normal teenagers with normal lives. Like Nathan’s cheek wasn’t bruised. Like his ribs weren’t poking out from how he starved himself. Like there weren’t pale pink scars along his wrists and thighs and like he hadn’t put a cigarette out on his arm only moments before. 

They acted like Victoria didn’t cry by herself with her piles of rejection letters. Like they weren’t scared of being disappointments. They kissed and held each other and thought about how they could be so much more. They could be better than they were, maybe, one day. Maybe one day they wouldn’t be afraid anymore and they wouldn’t be insecure and angry and hurt people for no reason except to make themselves feel better. They touched under clothes and told each other that everything would be okay. 

It was surprising the first time Nathan managed to get it up. Surprising for both of them. Nathan had even cried a little and Victoria pretended not to notice. She hadn’t initiated. He didn’t like sex. He didn’t really want it that much so she always respected that. But he did initiate it. And it was awful. Somehow simultaneously the best and worst sex of Victoria’s life. 

It wasn’t graceful or sexy. It was awkward and messy and Nathan was so distracted by his boner and trying to do things right that his hands shook constantly. He slipped out too much, cursed often, couldn’t figure out where to put his hands. Victoria had laughed at one point when he tried to kiss her mouth but got too worked up and they bumped teeth and got her lip gloss all over his cheek. He came too fast and flopped on top of her like she was his casket and he was going to his grave. She didn’t get off and, when he came out of his post-orgasm stupor, he took care of her with his mouth. 

She had laughed herself to orgasm, holding onto his hair, and arching into his mouth. It was terrible. He kissed her with the sour taste of her climax still on his tongue and they looked at each other and erupted into soul deep giggles that had them gasping for more air than the actual sex had. It was amazing.

Best of all, it hadn’t changed anything between them. 

There were so many stories about sex changing everything. Like it would somehow make things more intense and real and like they would fall in love somehow and ruin each other. Victoria had turned over, cuddled into his chest, watching him smoke, and hadn’t felt anything than the usual fondness and admiration for how the light of his cigarette bounced off of his cheekbones and reflected in his eyes. He looked serious, with his hair all askew and his mind was somewhere else. So she had taken his cigarette and sucked the smoke from his lungs, exhaled it through her nose, and smirked at him with the sass of the devil, crawling on top of him. 

“What are you thinking about?” She had asked. He looked surprised and then smiled at her like she was the world, resting his hands on her hips and making circles with his thumbs. 

“Stupid shit. Like are we supposed to get hitched and have a bunch of brats, now?” 

She had laughed, but there was a serious tinged to his expression and she couldn’t help but kiss it off him. They were alone together and she wanted it to be good. 

“We can get married. Grow old and bitter together and tell the world to fuck off. Just the two of us. We can pool our monetary assets and fuck our parents over with the new Chase-Prescott partnership and take everything they have.” 

She looked at him then, not sure how serious she was being even though her pulse had sped up. The cigarette she stole went between her lips and she puffed, blowing out a cloud that Nathan quickly moved to inhale himself. She smiled while he contemplated. 

“No shit? You wanna get married?” 

He had sounded so incredulous but also scared and a little hopeful. Like he hadn’t ever thought someone would want to spend their life with him. She had been confused. It was pretty clear to Victoria that, if she was going to take the world on with anyone, it was going to be with Nathan Prescott. Romantic or not. 

She didn’t answer for a bit, passing the cigarette back and forth until it was a stub. Nathan took it and put it out on his wrist with a hiss and Victoria pretended she didn’t flinch. He looked at her while he did it, like he expected to scare her off. But she just raised a brow at him, challenging, and Nathan conceded quickly. He could challenge her affection every day and she would still go right back. 

“Why not? We’re rich. We could be richer. It wouldn’t be a bad move for us to join our assets. I like you. You like me. We could have everything.” 

She leaned back into him, kissing him then, pressing into him, like she wanted him to absorb her and to become one being. He held onto her tightly and the shaking went through him harder. He was the first to pull away, burying his face in the crook of her neck and breathing hard. 

“After we graduate. We’ll take everything.” and then, after a moment, quiet “No kids.” 

She was surprised and laughed a little, stroking his skin. She hadn’t thought about it too hard. She didn’t think at all when she said “Why not? They could be cute”.

Nathan had gone stiff like a board and his hands felt like earthquakes on her skin and Victoria had felt so much guilt. Not for a moment had she considered Sean Prescott and what he had done to Nathan. Not once had the thought of what Nathan knew of fatherhood ever crossed her mind. Sean Prescott was Nathan’s only model of what a father was supposed to look like. She heard it when he spoke, though he didn’t say that. She knew exactly what he meant.

“I’m afraid that I’ll hurt them, too.” 

Victoria never brought it up after that. 

They continued to have sex, or not have sex, depending on Nathan’s indecisive dick. It didn’t matter to her much. It was just closeness and sweat and clinging desperately to all the things they saw in one another, trying to grasp at the little light and the understanding. It wasn’t always good, thought the sex did get better.

Sometimes, though, Nathan reacted oddly. 

Things could be going well but if she said just the wrong thing or touched him in just the wrong way, they would slide into disastrous before she could blink. 

There were times where he would stop and go still, crying and clutching at her like she was going to disappear. Those were strange and scary, but not as terrifying as the times where she had tried being kinky, making some joke about his submissiveness. He flinched violently and curled in on himself, begging and promising he would be good. He wouldn’t push her off, just go limp and stare at the sheets, breathing shallowly. If she moved, the shaking would get worse. He looked like her was expecting her to do something horrible. One time she had touched him like that and he bit a hole in his lip.

Needless to say, she never tried to get too kinky with him again and she watched her words, though sometimes she slipped anyway. 

There were times where touching him at all sent him into a rage, all wild eyes and clenched fists, like he was going to attack, even though he was looking for the exit. The terror drew Nathan as tight as a rubber band about to snap. The implications behind those actions made Victoria sick. She didn’t understand. Who? Sean Prescott? The man was a monster, but she couldn’t see him doing anything like that to Nathan. 

She wanted to ask, but she never did. She didn’t know if she really wanted the answer anyway and it was Nathan’s business. 

She told herself that all the time and ignored all the signs of his worsening state. It was Nathan’s business. He would tell her if he wanted to.

She shouldn’t be making assumptions. Victoria Chase was not just like everyone else, staring in at Nathan Prescott and believing what he wanted her to believe.

She knew him. She knew his touch and his smell and the way he looked laughing and crying and angry and scared. She knew his home, Prescott Manor. She knew him at social functions, dressed to the nines and looking like an angry toddler trying to get out of his itchy suit. She wasn’t like the others who thought that Nathan enjoyed fine cuisine when Victoria knew that he liked fast food burgers slathered in grease and mustard. She wasn’t on the outside looking in.

She told herself that, over time, as he grew distant and increasingly unstable. She told herself that when he scared her, howling and clawing at himself and sobbing when he forgot that she was with him. 

Nathan Prescott was a fact. She knew him. She knew him like the back of her hand. 

She had no misconceptions about Nathan. She knew him.

She knew him when he was carted out in handcuffs, scared and wide eyed, staring at the floor like he wasn’t seeing reality. 

Victoria wondered if she had really been paying as much attention as she had thought.


End file.
